Successes

 

Behold my 'Garden'! 

 

Yes these are the seeds I planted a couple of months ago.  I am quite excited.  These photos are a couple of weeks old.  A neighbor advised me to move each zucchini plant to it's own pot.  Instead I just cut out 2 of them and left 2.  There have been bugs on them so I kind of doubt I will actually get any squash, but I have enjoyed just watching them grow.  There are now some baby squash trying to blossom, so we will see.  Stranger things have happened.

 

 

 

 

These are my judias.  See how wide and flat the pods are? I picked these, but just after that something got to the plants, probably a mold, and they are now leafless and dying.  Oh well. 

This is the fun one.  I have harvested lettuce 3 times so far and it is still going strong.  I even served it at munch and mingle.

See the marigold.  Elder Norton, one of our office elders bought that and gave it to us.  See, I told you they were wonderful.  Then Elder Butler made cookies for us just this last week and they were delightful.  It is rare for the missionaries to 'return the favor' of cooking for us and I really wouldn't want them too.  They are supposed to be using their time for missionary work.  I was still deeply touched.  Kind of tickled too, cause they were chocolate chip so I got to eat all of them..tee hee.

Here is the view if our entry way right now.  The geraniums are growing and looking beautiful.  There are flowers everywhere.  We have put some pots of geraniums outside the windows of the office.  In addition, Rod found an orange hibiscus and put that outside the front door of the office.  When our lady postman brought the mail the next day she said, 'You are now real Andalusian.'  I asked why and she pointed to the flowers.  Yup, that made us feel good.

The lady that cleans the office for us is a member but only comes to clean at night, so we only see her occasionally at church.  She has remarked that she likes the decorations Rod has put up.  I have done some 'cleaning out' and reorganizing and she noticed that too.  I am not done yet though.  I don't mean that things weren't organized or neat when we got here, they were.  But you know me, I can't leave things alone.  So I have gradually rearranged the store room and the 'kitchen' of the office.  Now I want to redo the Book of Mormon wall.  You haven't even heard of some of the languages we send the Book of Mormon in.  It is just cool and I want that to be seen more.  The other thing is that, because the mission is growing so much, we have to have more places to keep orders.  Slowly right?

 

The next photo shows my owie.  I jammed my little toe against the table leg, and had to wear sandals for a few days.  It didn't really hurt that much but boy was it colorful.  The photo doesn't do it justice.

The bruising is visible between the last 2 toes at the base.

 

We went to Primark and found Rod some father's day presents.  I think his favorite gift was the carrot cake, thouth. What?  You aren't surprised?

Last week we got our 2nd wave or our wavelet of new missionaries.  We are having dinner on the patio at the mission home in these next photos.  They are great missionaries, but they will have to hit the ground running.  We are already having some sisters training after only 6 weeks in the field.  The trainers were so so so so nervous.  One of our 'jobs' has been to call and visit occasionally with the new missionaries and see how they are doing, let them speak some English and decompress a little.  They are so cute, delighted to talk, often discouraged that they can't speak Spanish better, and glad to hear that they are normal.  We love them.



 

That is sister Deere and her kids on the far side of the table.

I was helping collect luggage, so I got there late, after most everyone was done eating.  I did some driving all by myself too.  I didn't even get lost.  Aren't you proud of me?

Left is our new AP, Elder Gochez and right is Elder Hooper.  The photo just didn't pick up their halos.

 One fun thing Rod started doing right when he got here, was when answering the phone, he says, "Hola querido(a) missionero (a) de la Mission Malaga." He always says that when he addresses the missionaries and they are picking it up now too.  It means 'hello beloved missionary of the Malaga Mission, and it tickles me to hear them say that back to him and each other. 

Here is Rod sporting his new skinny leg Spanish pants and tie.  The shirt is new too, but will have to be a Sunday only shirt.  We didn't notice when we bought it but it has no pocket.  Rod lost count of how many times he tried to put his glasses, phone, pen etc in that nonexistent pocket.

 

Here you see another 'event'.  You see, I put the clothes in the dryer when we left in the morning.  The dryer runs for about 20 minutes and then just fluffs them every few minutes till you take them out.  Well, the slip strap got caught and by the time I opened the dryer when we got home that night, every thing in it had twisted into one long rope.  All the clothing survived intact though I may have to replace the slip strap.  The little plastic loops used to adjust the length, who knows what they are called, will never lie flat again.

 

We went to Estepona this week, took the Elders to meet some new investigators though we doubt it can go too well because they live so far away.  While they were teaching, we went to find the home of some members of the branch that haven't been seen in a long while.  It took some work, directions from a kind passerby,  a visit with the real estate guy for the development, and good luck, but we found the house.  Only problem was, no one answered the door.  We still don't know if they are gone for good, just weren't home or what.  We will try again I guess.

 



 A few weeks ago, I signed up to receive email from the city about events and have wanted to attend several of them.  Friday night we finally got to one.  This was a street party that ran for 3 days, mostly in the evenings, which means after 9:30 pm here.  That is the time we got there and we were early.  We really enjoyed it.  They had some booths, kids rides and one of those bouncy play houses.  A few of the restaurants on the street were still open and 1-2 stores.  At one end of a little plaza, they had set up a stage and we got to watch some dancers.  The last part of the show was a few community members that sang songs from the musical Grease.  In Spanish. All except the words 'greased lightning'.   So Funny!  They made a cardboard cut-out car that said 'Greased Lightning' on it as the prop.  We loved it.

I am going to have to learn to use castanets.  They sound so cool.

I think I want a skirt like this costume too. 

 This Sunday was Munch and Mingle for the branch.  It was our month to have it here at our house.  It really is fun to have them come.  Today we had visitors from Finland and Sweden.  We in the states are so limited, all of these visitors, even their kids, speak English. I just love getting to meet all these wonderful people.



The 2 on the left Jack and Seth from the ward, the one on the right is our Elder Butler from the office.

Well, you didn't get a day by day, but you did get a glimpse of our weeks.  We are planning on going to Caceras this next weekend.  I will let you know how it goes.  Please leave a comment.  I love knowing that someone is actually reading this.